From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishmainframemain‧frame /ˈmeɪnfreɪm/ noun [countable] TDa large powerful computer that can work very fast and that a lot of people can use at the same time If a problem does occur, a signal is automatically sent to the mainframe.
Examples from the Corpus
mainframe• Students undertake laboratory and design office work, use state-of-the-art mainframe and microcomputers and attend a surveying field course.• They have been so successful that the strongest machines available are now about as good as the best mainframes of five years ago.• Midland Bank, another Micro Control user, is only now migrating away from mainframe applications.• If a company has an in-house mainframe, there may well be attractions in using it.• Water cooling eliminates the problem in mainframe computers, but smaller machinery must find an alternative.• The company claims it costs a third to a half less than non-fault-tolerant storage systems used in mainframe environments.• In the SmartStream scheme, mainframes can be retained as file servers while cheaper Unix boxes assume its traditional tasks.• The mainframe will soon be history, the AS/400 is still worth saving, but time is desperately short.From Longman Business Dictionarymainframemain‧frame /ˈmeɪnfreɪm/ noun [countable]COMPUTING a large powerful computer that can do many complicated jobs very fast and that a lot of people can use at the same time. Users are connected to the mainframe through TERMINALsa network of computers linked to a mainframe 